WIRED's biggest stories, delivered to your inbox

How the Cloud is Changing Backup Vendor Strategy

While talking to various solution providers and vendors at CompTIA’s Breakaway in Las Vegas a few weeks ago, it occurred to me that some of these vendors, especially backup vendors, are in a potentially precarious place with the current strategic position and model of their companies, a position, that may determine their eventual fall.

Many backup vendors sell software and devices that go on-premise at a customer location and then perform backups either to local devices (also on-premise), or to offsite cloud storage. They generally backup, files, folders, or volumes. Well what happens as data is distributed offsite to many locations and applications — and then needs to be backed-up to a central location?

To further complicate the matter, cloud storage is getting cheaper and cheaper, practically every month, and even free in many circumstances. I run near real-time backups of my laptop to two different free storage providers. I also access additional storage via mapped drives to a couple other cloud storage vendors, both free and paid. This allows me to also access the same data from my iPhone or another computer. So as businesses become more adept at technology, I have to wonder if all the dirt cheap cloud storage will negatively affect the backup industry, but that is not he biggest problem in my mind.

I spoke with about 15 backup vendors and asked them: How is cloud computing changing the strategic direction for backup vendors? I explained to them this distributed model. I explained to them that the traditional model of backup is to have a software or a device that sits on-premise and performs a backup of all the on-premise data to either an onsite or offsite location. As cloud computing becomes more prominent, applications and data, will become distributed.

A business could have an online CRM application, online storage at various locations, social media data, perhaps a line-of-business application running in a virtualized environment at a cloud provider, various mobile and computer based apps, data on phones and other mobile devices, data on GoogleApps, a web-based SAS application, an eCommerce application, websites, etc. So as this happens, the astute executive is going to want to have a backup of all their data, no matter where it is, to one or more locations, even if the various providers are doing their own backup.

I was blown away at the some of the responses and shear surprise of what I was asking. As this concept sunk into a few people, their countenances changed from happiness, to concern — that I had just revealed a gaping hole in their strategic model. Many of the backup vendors I spoke with did not respond to my question, gave me a lame response, or shuffled me off to some PR person. Those were the ones that I think who were very afraid, or in denial.

I did receive several good responses from a few executives. Here is what I heard from various backup vendors:

“Cloud computing is having a major impact on the direction for data protection, especially in the mid-market, where nearly 80% of companies expect to deploy cloud storage for backup, disaster recovery and archiving within the next three years.”

“As the cloud model gains market share, disparate repositories for data are going to proliferate, and the need to consolidate those data repositories is going to grow. We see this as a great opportunity to add value to our market in the future.”

“I believe that backup, as we know it, is dead. We live in an always-on world where there’s an expectation that businesses of all sizes, run without interruption. Today’s ‘backup’ companies are built around the old model of copying files and folders to prevent data loss. Businesses need a new paradigm of protection – one that enables them to not only protect and access their data, but also their applications and systems at all times. That’s why at Axcient, we decided to build a cloud-based platform from the ground up. Nothing existed that answered the real pain-points of today’s businesses.”

“Cloud computing is still in its infancy, however, as a cloud backup and recovery service provider we are conscious of the fact that the natural evolution of cloud computing will gradually impact the amount of data that businesses will need to backup. More data is being created each day and overall we see that organic data growth is currently outpacing the adoption of cloud computing when it comes to the small to medium size businesses that we serve.”

It’s clear that the backup industry is changing. To adapt, companies are going to need to start creating API links from their platform — to apps, devices, software as a service (SaaS) providers, as well as independent and public cloud providers. Backup companies are already software based for the most part, so it should not be a huge stretch to imagine them shifting their resources to adapt to the changing needs of distributed data.

But there will be many, such as the numerous ones that I talked to that do not have a quote in this article, which will flounder until the backup channel consolidates. If I were looking for a backup solution, I’d place my bets with a backup vendor that understands cloud computing as more than just a storage location.